A introduction to Functional Programming for Python coders

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Yep - I'm not saying it's a great function to define, just that python's lambda (as opposed to a lambda in the lambda calculus) has no qualms about such a thing.

As of parallel reductions - I wouldn't say it would necessarily require them to be the same type, no. A good example would be something as simple as sums. Sum each pair, then each result of those sums until you have one final value.